Resources

The Papers of the Revolutionary Era Pinckney Statesmen Digital Edition will provide
a rich resource for scholars of political history studying the development of the
first party system south of Virginia. Military historians of the Revolutionary War,
the undeclared war with France in 1799–1800, the Creek War of 1813–1814, and the War
of 1812 will benefit from insights into preparations for and action taken during key
southern campaigns. Social historians will have resources for examining the complex
relationships of a family with extensive ties to southern and northern early national
elites. Historians of slavery will have access to the private correspondence of key
political leaders who fought to ensure that the Constitution protected slavery as
a system and whose financial and legal papers record scattered but important details
about their enslaved laborers. Diplomatic historians can study the impact of the personalities
and interests of southern planters on formative foreign policy events and treaties.
Surviving papers of all three men include correspondence with many whose papers are
not readily available, including the diary and letters of Mary Stead Pinckney in Paris
and the Hague while her husband Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was involved in the XYZ
Affair negotiations (1796–1798) and the large body of letters written to Thomas Pinckney
as Minister to Great Britain by men and women living in Europe and seeking his help
at the outbreak of renewed war between France and England (1793–1795). This selective
documentary edition will provide a wide range of original material for understanding
American international, national, and southern regional experiences in the revolutionary
and early national period, which will benefit not only scholars but students at the
collegiate and pre-collegiate levels and the general public interested in the achievements,
contributions, and daily lives of the founding generation.